It started over 25 years ago (wild, right?)
Once upon a nerd…
I was making graphics in Microsoft Paint, graduated to Paint Shop Pro, and then discovered HTML, and suddenly my graphics could do things. I stumbled across Lissa Explains It All (OGs know), and from that point, I was hooked.
- Microsoft Paint
- Paint Shop Pro
- HTML
- GeoCities
- WordPress
I built websites for fun, blogged before blogging platforms even existed, played around on GeoCities & eventually landed on this new thing called WordPress. I was coding before everyone was copy pasting myspace theme codes from Pimp My Profile.
By nineteen, a coworker casually asked if I knew web design could be an actual career.
Game on.
I hustled my way to my first five clients by cold-emailing businesses from the phone book, and from there it snowballed.
first clients, found by cold-emailing businesses out of the phone book.
Breaking things beautifully
By my early 20s, I had learned just about everything the hard way: poor boundaries, saying yes when I should’ve said no, working for “exposure,” and taking on projects that didn’t light me up.
I worked for giant agencies, boutique agencies, start-ups that folded, and companies whose payroll checks bounced. I managed 300+ marketing campaigns at once, QA’d websites, designed magazines, and built campaigns for doctors, lawyers, real estate agents, you name it.
marketing campaigns managed at once.
I failed a lot.
And I learned even more.
